Wear and Tear
No roof lasts forever, and like most roofing products, asphalt shingles deteriorate with time. Over time, asphalt shingles may change in appearance, but more importantly, their performance limits diminish. Shingles are most resilient to the effects of aging when they’re new, and they become more susceptible to the damaging effects of hail, wind, ice damming, wind-driven rain, and the everyday stresses of normal wear and tear the older they get.
Not all shingles age the same way or at the same rate. The effects of weathering depend on the construction and ingredients of an asphalt shingle, the method used to install them, their exposure to the sun, the ventilation of the roof, and many other factors. These are just some of the reasons why no two roofs are created equal and why we cannot correlate the performance of one roof to that of a neighboring roof – even if the two are the same type of shingles installed at the same time by the same contractor!
Understanding how various types of asphalt shingles weather and the factors that control the rate and extent of this weathering are critical to properly analyzing these roofs for all types of damage. Normal wear and tear can easily be misdiagnosed by those who are not familiar with the effects of nature’s unrelenting fury on these materials.